


The Naming of Names

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, M/M, Names, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pet Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2224005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another bit of fluff that insisted on coming out. I continue to suspect Sherlock's endless refusal to admit he knows Greg's name is more complex than just perverse humor. My pet theory is that "Greg" is a cover name, and that he's really "G" something or other. Maybe even "G" as an agent name, like M or Q. But I also sometimes like playing with Greg happily switching names because, well...there are so many G names you'd be happy enough to escape, after all...</p><p>In the meantime, I'm allowing Greg to give Mycroft a form of intimacy he needs, even if Mycroft thinks it's not one he wants. </p><p>It's fluff, it's a "colleagues to friends/lovers" transition, it's "clean," and God willing it will now go away and let me sleep, then write "Time and Memory.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naming of Names

Mycroft hated the nickname “Mike.” He battled his mother, he stood firm against his father, he hissed vicious objections at his brother, all in the name of his right to go through life as “Mycroft.” He insisted that “Mike” was a plebian, frivolous, and largely misleading shortening of his name, that tempted fools to assume he’d been christened “Michael”—an entirely inappropriate name, as anyone could tell you. It was Sherlock who battled dragons, after all.

No. He’d go through life with his head up and his proper name intact, and accept no shortenings, no diminutives, endure no coy nicknames pulled in to suggest various of his physical attributes. It was a matter of pride, dignity, and personal integrity.

Or, as Lestrade said, laughing, “I get it, Mike. You’re not havin’ with it.”

“Mycroft. Not Mike— _Mycroft.”_ His narrowed eyes studied the other man, serpent cold. “Or I could suggest you switch to ‘Mr. Holmes.’ That would be an appropriate professional choice.”

Lestrade met those cold eyes with granite resolve and dour amusement. “Whatever. How about ‘Red Chief’? In recognition of your hair and your rank?”

Mycroft was far less culturally illiterate than Sherlock, and recognized the reference. He was not amused. “We don’t ransom hostages in any case,” he said, tartly. “Danes and Danegeld, and all that. And my hair is not red.”

“Riiiiight.”

“It isn’t.”

“Yeah. Ok. Look, Mike, can we cut to the chase, here, and work out what we’re going to do now we’ve lost Panhandle Flan as an informant? That’s a tough patch of turf to keep an eye on…not many who are clean and civil enough to avoid complaints, but plausible as loiterers. It’s a nice corner. People will phone in complaints about most of Sherlock’s pack.”

Mycroft hummed, letting the name issue slip, as Lestrade was quite right—they needed a replacement for that vital corner, where the entire world came together and Piccadilly met Park Lane, and Buckingham Palace peered over the plush lawns of Green Park toward her grand big sister, Hyde Park. It was a place to watch the world…

“I have a notion,” he said, pensively. “A former agent. Retired now, but a prime player back in the day…”

“Think he’d fit?”

“She, and yes—she has the look of a former nanny. The kind who goes to the park to sneak crumbs to the pigeons and ducks, watch the kiddies, and knit.”

Lestrade hummed under his breath, eyes going distant. He smiled. “Nice. Good one, Mickey.”

“Mike…roft.” Damn, he’d almost endorsed “Mike” in his longing to evade “Mickey.” “I’m not a knock-out drop or a roofie.”

Lestrade met his gaze, eyes sparkling with unsaid witticisms. Mycroft could practically fill in the silences. He sighed. “Why do you continue to pester me with nicknames? Truly, I’d much prefer to be called Mr. Holmes, or if you must be casual, Mycroft. We’ve worked together for years, now—and every year you’re worse about it. ‘Red.’ ‘Freckles.’ ‘Mike.’” He shuddered. “I mean—last time it was ‘The Schnozzola.’ Honestly, Inspector Lestrade…”

“Greg.”

Mycroft’s mouth crimped primly. “I could retaliate, you know. ‘Snowy.’ And I’ve seen you in reading glasses. ‘Four-Eyes,’ perhaps?”

Lestrade’s smile was far more natural and amused. “You could, yeah. Down in the shop they call me ‘Sherlock’s Bitch,’ often as not. And ‘The Gov,’ when they’re not pissed off with me. Sal calls me ‘Mount Everest,’ ‘cause she says when I get stubborn you’re no more likely to move me than you are to move the Himalayas.” He chuckled, and added, “Which you can take as a hint, if you like, Tig.”

Mycroft sighed. “What now? Short for ‘Tiger’?”

“No. Tiggywinkle. You’re grumpy and spiny and roll up like a sulky hedgehog.”

“You’re sure you’re not thinking of John?”

Lestrade gave a shout of laughter. “Point! Yeah, all right. And I won’t call you ‘Porky’ for Porcupine, because Sherlock’s gone and scared you stupid about being too fat. Guess we’re back to Mike, then.” He rose and began gathering up the records and files he’d brought over with him, clearing his side of Mycroft’s desk. He held one up. “Want me to have Anthea copy this one?”

“I’d appreciate that, yes,” Mycroft said, studying the manila folder. “That and the material on the flashdrive?”

“Can do.” Lestrade sloped casually across the office and stuck his head out the door, handing the material over to Anthea and murmuring softly, before closing the door behind him and returning to finish packing his work materials away.

Mycroft, finished well before his associate, watched the other man, trying to work him out. He was a maddening muddle of traits, to Mycroft’s eye. Reliable, far more intelligent than Sherlock often acknowledged, loyal to a fault, a skilled operative and a highly competent handler…

If it weren’t for the stubborn streak, or the slight, aggressive tendency to tease and prod, or the wicked fondness for taking the piss out of his Holmesian associates…

Or perhaps Mycroft should say “taking the mickey out of his Holmesian associates,” given his fondness for teasing Mycroft with nicknames.

He didn’t nickname Sherlock… Of course, Sherlock instead was known to pester Lestrade with an endless string of misnomers, as though he could not be bothered to remember Lestrade’s name—a stunt that drove Lestrade mad, as it both gave the impression Lestrade was of no worth or importance to Sherlock, which had to sting, and because it cut far too close to the hidden truth of Lestrade’s many psuedonyms. In his current role, he was “Greg Lestrade.” He hadn’t been born with the name…

“You were christened ‘George,’ if I recall correctly.”

Lestrade looked up, and grimaced. “Aye, well. No one asked me before they tied that one on.”

“Do you ever miss it?”

The look Lestrade shot him was incredulous. “You’re serious? ‘George’? Keep it. Didn’t mind being reborn as ‘Greg’ in the least.”

“No affection for your own proper name at all?”

“None.”

Mycroft studied him, sure there was something more. Something not quite in keeping with his protestations. He wasn’t sure what, though. He sighed, and shifted the topic, picking away at his own grievance. “Why call me ‘Mike,’ then?” he asked. “I like that no more than you like ‘George.’”

Lestrade grinned. “That’s easy. You do like it. You just don’t like to admit it. You like ‘Red,’ and ‘Freckles,’ and you even liked ‘Schnozz.’ You grumble and huff and argue and whine—and make absolutely sure I never quit. You _like_ having someone who crosses over the line, and gets inside your perimeter.”

Mycroft huffed and sat straighter in his chair. “I certainly do not.”

Lestrade just grinned at him, knowingly. “Yeah, right. Look at it this way, Red Chief—if it weren’t this, I might find some other way to satisfy your yen for intimacy.” He winked, laughing silently in soft, huffing breaths as Mycroft bridled and sulked. “Come on. Admit it—if you imagine someone close to you—a friend, a lover, whatever. Do you really imagine them calling you ‘Mycroft?’”

Mycroft sniffed. “I don’t do ‘friends.’ That’s Sherlock’s fetish.”

Lestrade was silent, watching him, eyes almost as calm and alert as Sherlock’s could be—and far less hostile or competitive.

Mycroft, feeling the creeping sensation of being too clearly seen, added, edgily, “I don’t have lovers, either. Not of the sort who call me much of anything.”

“’Yes, sir; no, sir; I’ll leave you my card when I go, sir?’” Lestrade managed to tease without sounding like he was exactly accusing Mycroft of patronizing rent-boys or for that matter running a B&D dungeon. The implication of isolated reserve even in sex, though, was clear. Mycroft cleared his throat uneasily. The gentle mockery came a bit too close to reality.

“There’s no room for that sort of informality in my life,” he said, uneasily.

“Didn’t say there was,” Lestrade replied. “Just…wondered if that was what you dreamed of. When you let yourself dream, that is. Just seems off, to me—not you at all. You can be Mycroft all day here, behind your desk. I guess you can be Mycroft every minute of the day, in the real world. I just—“

“What?” Mycroft asked, sharply, resenting the perception demonstrated. “You just what? Think I’m really a ‘Mickey’ in my secret heart of hearts? Sherlock will assure you, I have none.”

“Sherlock will call you ‘Mike,’ on the rare occasions he’s not playing some weird cross between Spock and Doctor Who and pretending he’s the last living Gallifreyan in the universe.” Lestrade sighed, gently, and said, “I just think…if you ever have conversations with people in your mind…if you ever take a walk with some imagined friend…if you ever dream for a few minutes you have a lover…I think in your mind, whoever it is calls you ‘Mike.’ Or something else that’s about how you’re friends, not about how you’re not friends.”

Mycroft bit his lower lip, aware it was a tell but too shaken to hide the response—to hide the physical need to silence himself.

In his mind he could sense the flicker of years of imagined discussions, pretended moments of friendship and intimacy. He’d eaten imaginary meals, listened to symphonies holding silent dialog with imagined companions, walked through Russian streets discussing architecture with phantom friends…lain spent and at ease with entirely fictional lovers. He could hear the mirage of voices murmuring, his name…His names….

Mike. Mikey. My. And the nicknames: Red and Beanstalk and Ginger and Tiger. Ace. Even just terms of endearment: love and lover and sweetie and darling.

Not ‘Mycroft.’ The secret friends and lovers never called him that. That was the name for the office. The name he used to defend his boundaries and mark his territory. His intangible friends and lovers called him tenderer names.

Lestrade noted his silence and interpreted it correctly. He nodded, a faint, soft smile lighting his eyes but leaving his face still. “Thought so,” he said, quietly.

Mycroft shrugged. “And you? In your mind? Not ‘George.’ But not ‘Greg,’ either.”

Lestrade cocked his head and thought about it. Then he said, “I had a foster mum after my folks died. Got a good one, believe it or not. She called me ‘Geordie.’”

Mycroft nodded. “You’d make a good Geordie. It suits.”

“And Mike suits you.”

“And ‘Mickey,’ and ‘Red’ and all the rest?”

“My foster mum would have said you’re a pet, eh? Need a lot of pet-names.”*

Mycroft could feel the twitch of his mouth as the grin took control, refusing to be forced aside. “Blarney. You’re sure you’re not Irish?”

“West Counties. Probably a bit of Welsh, a bit of Cornish. Maybe some Irish—I can’t say.”

“A silver-tongued Celt.”

Lestrade nodded, absently, eyes never leaving Mycrot’s face. His voice was soft as a gentle night wind when he said, “What name would a friend call you, if you had a West Country Celt for a friend?”

Mycroft shivered. “I…don’t do friends.”

“But if you did?”

“I…” He shivered. “I don’t…”

‘Imagine you did. What name would he call you?”

“I suppose that would depend.” Mycroft licked his lips, all the old fantasies unrolling, a flood of images and scraps of dialog floating through his mind. “I…it would depend on when. How….”

“Over fish and chips and a beer.”

Mycroft smiled, almost laughing at the idea of himself and an imagined friend—a mad West Counties Celt—eating fish and chips at Sherlock’s favorite shop….

“Mike. He…you’d call me Mike.”

Lestrade’s eyes shone. “See? I told you.” He laughed, and picked up his briefcase, now stuffed full with files. “Tell you what—why don’t you come out for dinner with me, and we’ll see how it sounds…Mike.”

Mycroft drew in a slow, cautious breath. He didn’t do friendship. But…

He nodded and rose, already reaching for his jacket and umbrella. “I don’t really do friendship. But—I suppose for a man who knows my name.” He opened the door of his office and held it courteously, smiling at Lestrade. “Come along, Geordie. It’s late, and I’m starved…”

 

*On the off chance you’ve not encountered the term, “pet-name” is an alternate word for “nickname.” I’m sure it can be used as a kinky joke, but in this particular instance it’s just Lestrade suggesting Mycroft’s a bit of a sweetie, and deserves a lot of loving friendship-names.


End file.
